The show was originally created by Fox Studios Australia, who in 2006 contracted Simon Turnbull, President of the Australian Psychics Association, to help create the show. The psychics' abilities are observed by a studio audience or at external locations, and are judged by a two-person panel including Stacey Demarco, a psychic, and Richard Saunders, vice president of Australian Skeptics.[2]

The show premièred in Australia on Tuesday, 8 July 2008. The program is broadcast with closed captions and is classified PG.

Mitchell Coombes - First to be voted off and author of 2 books has 7 years professional experience.

Rayleen Kable - Second to be voted off and host of a paranormal radio show on the mid-coast of NSW, also stars on "Haunting:Australia".

Rev. Dr. Shé D'Montford - The show's token witch is a former Qld Business Woman of the and Australian of the Year nominee. Third to be voted off she is the author of over 10 books and 5 DVDs, editor of 4 alternative magazines of which she is the editor-in-chief of "Magick" and "ESP."(journal of The Ethical Society of Psychics) Shé had over 35 years professional experience working as a psychic in Australia, US, Sth Africa, NZ and Asia. Shé has a guest starring role in a Dutch production "Ushi Must Marry" playing herself. Shé has been parodied by English comedian as his psychic comedy character Ian D Monfort- The One: Britain's Most Gifted Psychic (UK)

Dr. Jason Betts - Australian psychic and fourth to be voted off. Member of Mensa with 20 years professional experience. Winner of the 2008 Australian Psychic of the Year award (APA) and the 2010 Tasmanian Psychic of the Year Award (APA).[3]

Amanda Roussety - Top Three contestant. Housewife and young mother of 3, was the only non-professional psychic to appear on the show.

Ezio De Angelis - Top Three contestant. A stage medium with over 10 years professional experience.

Charmaine Wilson - The winner of Channel Seven's inaugural season of 'The One.' This Australian Medium began working professionally in this field in 2002, and was also honored as Queensland Psychic of the Year in 2009 and Australian Psychic of the Year for 2005 by the Australian Psychics Association.

Eliminations were made by the judges each week. On the final episode of "The One" the winner was chosen by the Australian public, voting via a telephone popularity poll.

The show was controversial for content shown in the final episode of season 1, featuring a hunt for the body of murder victim Peter Falconio. The stunt was condemned by Colne Valley MP Kali Mountford, who had worked with the Falconio family, with "Some reality shows are worthwhile and show people having a laugh, but there is nothing funny about such a personal, terrible tragedy."[5] The search for Falconio was additionally criticized by the eventual winner Charmaine Wilson as being "in bad taste".[6]

Shé D'Montford also publicly criticized the show for editing out many of the things that the psychics got right in order to make the show more believable to the general public. Her comments have been published on this in the August 2008 issue of Spheres magazine. Further reports were in The Australian Psychics Directory of that year and Spellcarft magazine as well as on several radio programmes including the following web archive.[7]

All of the tests followed conditions discussed with Richard Saunders, who was the secretary for The Australian Skeptic Society and a judge on the show. However, Saunders has stated that contestants failed 94% of tests.[8] Yet showed no mathematical basis for this statistic.

In season 2 over 800 people were invited to audition for the show, in accordance with an agreement with the Seven Network and the Australian Psychics Association.